How the Royals bumped Kansas’ Perry Ellis off the Sports Illustrated cover

One decent throw by Mets first baseman Lucas Duda, and Kansas basketball would have found itself on a regional Sports Illustrated cover this week. Senior forward Perry Ellis was set to grace the cover of SI, which published its college basketball preview this week and has the Jayhawks ranked No. 2.

But on Sunday night in New York, Duda threw wild in the ninth inning of Game 5, and the Royals completed another comeback, claiming the World Series championship at Citi Field. The Royals got the SI cover treatment, and Ellis got bumped.

How do we know this?

SI on Wednesday released the college basketball covers that never were. If the World Series would have stretched to a Game 6 on Tuesday, the SI cover deadlines would have passed, and the winner of the World Series would have been pushed to next week — or not used at all. Sorry Perry, that’s the way it goes.

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